From Issue 1:

by Lucy Scher, Co-Director of The Script Factory

Genre is not only an inescapable fact of life for writers and for the audience, failure to properly understand or deploy its very useful conventions can be harmful to the well-being of any story or script. Lucy Scher makes an understanding of genre an essential part of The Script Factory reader and development training programme. In this issue of ScriptWriter Magazine she introduces the subject; then in subsequent issues she will analyse specific genres, from popular ones like the love story and romantic comedies, road movies and action adventure to more unusual ones like ensemble stories and screwball comedies. Each article will add to the ones before and after to provide a comprehensive guide to genre as a practical and powerful tool for writers.

Think for a moment about yourself and whether this situation resonates: someone asks you to go and see a film but you don’t want to go. It’s not that you don’t ever want to see that film, but just not right now. Or if someone asks me what film should they see, I need to ask how they are feeling before making a suggestion.

What does ‘feeling’ have to do with genre? It’s not such an odd question. Genre, quite simply means a type of film, but it has a complex cultural meaning and it is a classic example of the sum total being a great deal more than the parts. It is important at the outset of any discussion of genre to dispel the negative associations: genre is not about stereotype, formula or predictability. The real meaning of genre is defined by the audience’s expectations.

All stories need a catalytic event that need not necessarily be dramatic, but it does change the course of the story and should mean that we can no longer go home. A dramatic question has been raised and we have to sit out the exploration of the question until we have the answer. The audience is waiting for the key significant event that will start the story and this expectation is ignored by writers at their peril. In a thriller it is usually the protagonist catching up with the audience to realise that all is not what it seems. It is the first acknowledgement that there is a situation to deal with and that choices are now constricted.

Drama needs resolving even if the resolution is to suggest that it is not all over yet… Endings should come about through individual action such as is expected in a thriller: the protagonist has found the last ounce of ingenuity and personal resource that enables them to foil the antagonist and stay alive. In other genres the ending may be more affected by forces outside the protagonist.

CONT. in Issue 1.

© The Script Factory

Lucy Scher is Co-Director of The Script Factory in London which she joined in 1996. As The Script Factory expanded, she moved from producing rehearsed public readings of scripts into development and training, working with new and established writers.

She was selected to undertake Story Editor Training on the Arista programme in 1999; has lectured and acted as a development mentor for students on the University of Salford’s MA in TV & Radio; lectures at De Montfort’s MA in Television Scriptwriting; has devised and delivered short courses on script development for production companies and advertising agencies; mentors both short and feature writers for a number of the regional production funds; and conducts a regular programme of Industry Reader & Development Training for The Script Factory.